Stand Out or Blend In???

As this years upcoming Family Weekend Retreat approaches, It has left me thinking about how I have raised my children. Especially in regards to Aric. After I had met several folks who were either D/HH themselves or had D/HH children one of the repeated pieces of advise was not to treat my D/HH child any different from my oldest. I took that piece of advice to heart for numerous reasons. One was because I didn't want to be like one mom who regretted coddling her child to the point that now her child who is 25 relies on her & her husband for everything and has zero social skills and the maturity of a 15 yr old teenager. Secondly, I didn't want my oldest child to feel as if his brother was getting any special treatment because I didn't want my oldest to resent my youngest. Now, you may be thinking that obviously somethings' had to be handle differently; such as communication etc. You would be correct in that aspect but just as much as Logan & I had to learn to sign, gesture etc; Aric was to learning to do that and speech. In the beginning it was far from easy. The lack of communication led to temper tantrums and thanks to one of my roommates at the time it created my youngest into a monkey...lol. My roomie , instead of asking questions as to what Aric wanted would pick him up and show what was in the kitchen cabinets. Aric would point and of course my roomie would produce :) Once Aric caught on he realized that he didn't need to ask ( of course this is in his mind only; not mine) but instead push the kitchen chair up to the counter and climb up and thoroughly investigate what was in the cabinets. I can honestly say this also marked the beginning of his independency :)
Now, years later, Aric can & do communicate beautifully. Logan doesn't sign as much as me and I do believe that is due to Aric teasing him unmercifully when he signs something wrong. Yet, after much encouragement from me he has signed up to take ASL in high school. Why would I encourage him to do so? For starters, I feel as much as Aric has been working to perfect his speech so those that are "hearing" can understand him: Logan needs to learn sign language so he can communicate with his brother later in life - in the possibility that Aric may eventually lose all his hearing & not to mention,  be able to communicate with our friends in the D/HH community on his own instead of having Aric & I interpret.
I chose for Aric to be able to "blend in" as much as possible by having him learn various modes of communication. I know that there are people who have many different views but this was our choice. I wanted him to be able to be part of both the hearing & the D/HH world with ease. Sometimes because he does move with ease between both cultures he & I are criticized. We have been told for example that,  "we think we are too good" or "I am making him stand out and therefore he will have problems in various areas". I am here to tell you, thus far the excuses and so called "reasons" I was given are bogus. The people who do not accept his gift of being tri-lingual are just plain missing out on a genuine cool kid; plain & simple.
Aric does stand out in many ways. His personality & character tend to be on the extreme extrovert side of the spectrum. He also only has one ear . Most people who are part of the hearing world kind of freak out when they first see him and wonder how am I going to communicate w/ this kid etc. We have been blessed to be part of a local little league where they treat Aric for himself and not give him special treatment because he has a hearing loss. Of course, every year we have had a new coach and I explain as I always do. I tell the coach or coaches that Aric has a hearing aid and if you look directly at him when you're speaking he can understand you. Now there will be times when you will have to speak louder because background noises will have interfered with his hearing aid. Please, do not be afraid that I will be offended because its almost as if you a yelling. He is just like every other kid and gets distracted and may need to be yelled at if he is goofing off instead of paying attention. In saying this, it eases the coaches and the other players(kids) take their cue on how to interact with Aric from them. I also stay around for the first few practices to make sure that there is no hindrance in the communication. Needless to say, I do attend games and interpret from the spectator bench during the game from time to time because Aric may not hear what the coach says due to the noise or wind interfering w/ his hearing aid. This year, the coaches came up with signals for Aric when they knew the background noise was going to interfere with his hearing aids which worked real well for them and allowed for me to not worry about whether he heard what the coach said or not.
I am amazed many times at peoples responses to Aric. He is not a child that will allow you to ignore him. This competitive and aggressive nature has not only allowed his coaches this year to see the skills Aric had & needed to improve on to make him more successful but also Logan's coaches for the last two yrs. have seen Aric's ability & have worked with him on numerous occasions. Aric's personality allowed for him to often times sit in the dugout with Logan's team and act as bat boy.

Essentially, I believe that if you teach your child to be all that they can and not hinder them because we as parents are afraid due to  the child's hearing loss is new to us  hearing parents; the child will thrive and become successful in whatever he or she chooses to do. The child will not look at one selves as different or if one notices he/she is different; the child will  be confident and comfortable in their own skin because we as parents instilled in our children the drive and ambition to become successful members of their community.

Below are pictures of Aric's team after winning the championship title & Logan's team in a team huddle which Aric is right smack dab in the middle of :)